Friday, December 17, 2010

Pantheon Of Idiots

People love to wax nostalgic over the things of their youth, and fair enough. But the one fond memory I can never countenance is He-Man. He was chronic.

Preening, be-bobbed aristocrat He-Man resembles nothing so much as the kind of aryan fellow who would pound on lesser youths at school. Over-muscled and gloriously vain, clad in furry hotpants and boots and... something he bought from the garden centre... this pompous ass wails on upbeat goth Skeletor week-in, week-out - presumably for liking The Mission and Sisters Of Mercy (not sure).

I won't explore his weird cousin She-ra's transposition of the "He-Man" way to a perfect prototype of the "Mean Girls" ethos but, needless to say, I think she was in many ways worse, titting about on her bloody gymkhana pony.

5 comments:

But John what about He-Man's vague messages of safety at the end of each episode or his collection of oddball friends. No jock would be friends with Orko now would they? And while I love Skeletor (the upbeat goth!) he was a thief and a kidnapper after all, just not a very good one.

I totally agree about She-ra though. Horrible business that, horrible.

I think - as with most cartoon heroes - the fascination was with the villain rather than the protagonist. Skeletor was pretty cool, and if anyone was watching He-Man, it was much more likely they were Skeletor fans than He-Man fans.

The same goes for most cartoons. Team Cobra was way more interesting than the G.I. Joes, Mumm-Ra was better than the Thundercats and no superhero could match his supervillains in style or characterization. Who watches Batman for the caped crusader and boy wonder? No one!

The real question is this: Why did they always make the bad guys more interesting? Was anyone ever swayed by bland good-naturedness? What does it say about us that we root for an entertaining evil over a tedious good?